Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters kick off their spring and summer tour, featuring music from the album lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar, at the Sasquatch! Festival in George, WA, this Sunday. The North American dates include a return to Bonnaroo and finish off at the Mann Center in Philadelphia on June 17. The Pixies will open five of the shows, and JD McPherson five. The UK and European leg of the tour begins July 10 and runs into August.

The Bad Plus Joshua Redman, whose self-titled debut album is due out next week in North America and June 8 elsewhere, performed at the Detroit Jazz Festival in 2014, when Redman was Artist in Residence there. NPR's Jazz Night in America was there to capture the new quartet, fresh out of the studio. Watch the performance and an interview with the band here. The new album is streaming in full till May 25 as an NPR First Listen. The quartet kicks off a tour at the Blue Note Jazz Festival on June 10.

The Black Keys resume their Turn Blue world tour with a performance at the Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, Spain, next Thursday, May 28. The tour continues into August with festival sets in Greece, United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, and United States, including Governors Ball, Isle of Wight, Outside Lands, and many more. 

As David Letterman prepares his final episode as host of the Late Show tonight, the Nonesuch Journal takes a look back at some of the many memorable performances Nonesuch artists are fortunate to have played on his stage in the Ed Sullivan Theatre (and in one case, the fire escape outside it) over the years, from The Black Keys, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell, Punch Brothers, Wilco, Rhiannon Giddens, Conor Oberst, Lianne La Havas, Laurie Anderson, Randy Newman, and others. Thanks for the music, Dave.

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell visited Rolling Stone to perform two songs from their new album, The Traveling Kind: the title track and "The Weight of the World." Watch both here. "If only Hollywood sequels were this good," exclaims Mother Jones of their follow-up to Old Yellow Moon. "Harris' still-beautiful voice has acquired a darker, slightly rougher texture that adds authority, while the weathered grace of Crowell's singing makes him a perfect match. A fine job by all concerned, including the stellar players." Vanity Fair calls it "a beautiful collection of duets" from "one of the most storied collaborations in country music."

Newly formed Congolese seven-piece band Mbongwana Star releases its debut full-length album, From Kinshasa, today via World Circuit, distributed in North America by Nonesuch Records; vinyl follows July 31. It's a "wonderful kind of collaboration," says NPR. "The sound is out of this world." Chicago Reader says the "album is a blast ... stunning." The Guardian gives From Kinshasa a perfect five stars, naming it Album of the Week. Says Noisey: "It's time to press play and immerse yourself in another world."

The Bad Plus Joshua Redman's self-titled, debut album is due out next week and is streaming in full till then as an NPR First Listen at npr.org. The album is "a roaring and beautiful summit meeting," says NPR's Tom Moon. "The ideas are impressive by themselves, but become more powerful as Redman and the rhythm section go about developing them ... [T]he real triumph of The Bad Plus Joshua Redman: It exhibits genuinely fresh thinking." The album, he concludes, "draws on a range of old ideas (as old as Chopin nocturnes and '60s rock) as fuel for a journey into the murky, terrifying, thrilling unknown."

David Byrne is the guest on the latest episode of WTF with Marc Maron. "For many people, including Marc, David Byrne has served as a tour guide through a new frontier of creativity," says the show. "The frontman for Talking Heads sits down with Marc to talk about forming the preeminent new wave band of the 20th century and then branching out on his own to create work in theater, film, ballet, opera and, most recently, the world of competitive color guard performances."

Olivia Chaney kicks off her spring tour with performances in Manchester, Edinburgh ... Devendra Banhart, Andy Cabic tour Spain, Portugal ... Rhiannon Giddens plays a weekend of sold-out shows at SFJAZZ ... Kronos Quartet performs in Wisconsin ... Audra McDonald sings in Virginia ... Joshua Redman quartet headlines the SLO Jazz Festival in San Luis Obispo ... and more ...

The Americana Music Association announced today its nominations for the 2015 Americana Honors & Awards, and among the nominees are Rhiannon Giddens for Artist of the Year and Album of the Year for her T Bone Burnett-produced solo debut album, Tomorrow Is My Turn; Punch Brothers for Duo/Group of the Year; and Carolina Chocolate Drops' own Hubby Jenkins for Instrumentalist of the Year. The Americana Honors & Awards return to the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on September 16.

Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell stopped by WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show to discuss their decades-long friendship and working relationship, their new album, The Traveling Kind, and its predecessor, the Grammy Award–winning Old Yellow Moon, and to perform two songs from the new album: the title track and "You Can't Say We Didn't Try." Hear it here. They also spoke with the Wall Street Journal, and Harris discussed the new album with CMT, which calls it "an endlessly elegant modern country masterwork."

Prior to the release of Mehliana: Taming the Dragon, the debut album from Brad Mehldau and Mark Guiliana's electric duo, they had been performing together for some time, including a show at Largo in LA in October of 2013, several songs from which were filmed live. The videos, directed and recorded by Alex Chaloff, released thus far include live takes on album tracks "Sleeping Giant," "Just Call Me Nige," and "Hungry Ghost." A fourth and final video, of the song "Centinela," which is not on the album, can now be seen here. Mehliana performs at the Music Meeting Festival in Nijmegen, Netherlands, on May 24, the pair's only scheduled date for the rest of the year.